EXTRA "panda" car drivers are to be trained to meet a police force's expected need for more frontline officers.

Durham Police chiefs plan to invest in a training programme to produce 120 qualified drivers a year - 40 more than are currently taking to the road.

Despite having a record total of bobbies on the beat, the force aims to increase the number of recruits authorised to drive police vehicles.

While recorded crime has fallen in recent years, including a five per cent drop in the year to the end of March, the number of calls to the police reporting incidents rose to 197,816, 7,000 more than the previous year.

Senior officers have forecast the upward trend in calls will continue, due to public expectation and improved access to services.

Chief Superintendent Trevor Watson, head of personnel, said: "Many incidents require an immediate mobile response and we just don't have enough drivers qualified to get behind the wheel of an emergency vehicle.

"The shortfall could be aggravated by the predicted increase in calls."

Uniformed officers must undergo a training course and pass a standard police driving test before they can respond to emergency calls in marked police vehicles fitted with blue lights and two-tone horns.

Existing training arrangements see about 80 officers per year successfully complete the standard course.

Chief Supt Watson said: "Research has shown that in some stations only half the officers on duty are standard driver trained.

"This increases demand on a limited number of officers, and action is needed now.

"Durham has long been a community-based force, but we need both flexibility and mobility to meet the varied demands placed upon us by the communities we serve.

"The number of priority calls we get, together with a projected increase in those retiring, will create a situation over the next few years where the number of trained drivers will effectively reduce."

Chief Supt Watson said an in-house review considered varying options, including a basic assessment of driver skills to undertake non-response-type driving